TEENAGE FONDNESSES

Our reading preferences change. At least, if we've got more than half a brain they do. Which is an almighty good thing, given the dreck that held our attention when we were teenagers. Sometimes what we read as bothered adolescents pales considerably by comparison to what we enjoyed in early childhood.
Here's the thing. We were mentally quite distinct before the growth and sex hormones kicked in and messed up our lives for the next six years.
With a bit of luck, we will become distinct again.
Although a bit more twisted.

Children do not have a natural purity and innocence, but they do have interesting minds and a clarity of focus. Teenagers, on the other hand, are dealing with a swollen brain and physical developments, awash with chemicals that their bodies had not produced in such a flood before; consequently they're zotsed. Unstable, and monstrous.
Darned well retarded for the duration.
Well, the boys are.

When I was nearly thirty I reread several of the Heinlein novels that had excited me as an teenager. They were boring, thematically uninspired, and obsessed with sex. Altogether very unhealthy stuff.
I do not think that Heinlein liked women.
Other than as physical items.

He didn't like men either, but that's neither here nor there, seeing as sex and romance in the Heinlein universe was overwhelmingly heterosexual and female-objectifying.

What had happened between my early teens and my re-reads is that my body had calmed down, and my brain was no longer in a state of permanent booby-hunger. Plus the added breadth and perspective of a further decade and a half made the sparkling newness of rampant Fantasy & Science Fiction sexuality far less crisp.


SWEATY TEENAGE HORMONES!

Piers Anthony was one of those writers with whom I experimented as a twelve or thirteen year old. It was the briefest of flirtations.

Mordechai in New York posted on his Facebook page recently: "If anyone suggests you read the Xanth books, don't just not listen. Unfriend them and get away from them fast. Consider burning their bookshelves to be safe."

Which quite naturally sparked my curiosity.
For which the internet was invented.
It inevitably lead me to this:

Revisiting the sad, mysogynistic fantasy of Xanth

As brutal retrospections go, it's a dynamite read. The author no longer likes what, as a hormonally sodden penis with eyes and legs, he loved. He has grown up, calmed down, and become human.
And Xanth no longer suits him.


A few juicy quotes:

"During his first meeting with Iris, the sorceress changes her appearance numerous times in an attempt to seduce Bink. First she appears as an older woman, then as a voluptuous woman, then as a 14-year-old girl: “very slender, lineless, and innocent.” Bink becomes overwhelmed by the smorgasbord of female flesh laid out before him; it’s a shame Xanth's pervasive magic doesn’t include Internet porn. "

"What exactly is the desire that Bink has, the one that dare not speak its name? Being able to have sex with a variety of women at the snap of his fingers? Or being able to have sex with a 14-year-old?
In hindsight, it’s not a stretch to assume the latter. Since the height of Anthony’s popularity in the ’80s (spurred also by bestselling series like Apprentice Adept and Incarnations Of Immortality), his work has become increasingly shunned for its hints of pedophilia."

"Apart from one dodgy comment about 14-year-olds, A Spell For Chameleon doesn’t have anything to do with pedophilia. It’s all good, old-fashioned misogyny. "

"Ultimately, Anthony is the worst kind of misogynist: one who defends his offensive views by saying, in essence, how could he possibly hate women if he’s drooling over them all the time?"

"Her magic ability is to become three distinct beings: Wynne, a borderline mentally retarded woman -- whose lack of intelligence goes hand in hand with her promiscuity [ -- ]. Dee, who is average in both looks and smarts, at least according to Bink, who has demonstrated a surplus of neither of those qualities himself; and Fanchon, a hideous hag with enough cold, calculating cleverness to intrigue Bink—and to rescue his ass on more than once occasion."

"Chameleon has no control over her metamorphosis. It occurs naturally and gradually according to a monthly—or rather, “lunar”—cycle that’s obviously meant as a metaphor for the menstrual cycle. Because, of course, that’s what a woman’s period does: turns them into either mindless fuck-bunnies or devious, penis-wilting shrews."

End cites.
Source: Jason Heller, on AVClub dot com.


What I liked about Jason Heller's boffo article was that it was slammingly critical, almost to the point of being mean-spirited, but focused and monochromatic. He did not veer into the other thematic elements (which I presume do exist in the Xanth series), nor flame the jejune puns and wordplays which gave other critics the creeps, but drills down into the raw slime he found when re-reading Anthony's material.

"If anyone suggests you read the Xanth books, don't just not listen. Unfriend them and get away from them fast. Consider burning their bookshelves to be safe."

Precisely why I stopped reading Heinlein is why I will not reread Piers Anthony. And several other authors.

I am no longer a teenager, and I no longer think with my dick.

Oh sure, I am dirty-minded and haamsap.

But I've got perspective.


*      *      *      *      *


By the way, the menstrual cycle never frightened me. As an eight-year old I had already read all about it, and found the material quite as fascinating as the function of the kidneys, and the ventricles of the heart.
Hormonal shifting, and the clockwork of the tissues.
Human biology still awakes my curiosity.
I really must revisit Vesalius.
Good reading.




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